About Carolyn: I wrote, received, and administered a Pennsylvania Children’s Trust Fund grant, which was designed to heal adults of their childhood abuse, enabling them to break the chain of abuse with their children. Within the grant I taught community members how to be first-responders to domestic violence/child abuse, ran a family support program and counseled adults to aid them in the healing process.

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

CHARACTERISTICS OF AND LURES USED BY CHILD MOLESTORS

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. (to view photo click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3412621389/). I will be continuing my posts on child abuse and domestic violence throughout the month. Please be there for children whom you suspect are being abused. Sometimes, all you can do is hold out a loving hand and pray for them.

This post is part of a continuing series about child abuse and parenting. At the end of this article are links to the other posts on this subject. If the links do not work, go to www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com , click on the folder CHILD ABUSE or the folder DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, and scroll down the posts to find answers to your questions.

It is essential for a parent to know the characteristics of a child sexual abuser in order to protect their child. It is equally important to understand how perpetrators lure children into their web of harm, and to teach their child how to identify danger and respond to it, and most importantly, to report it to a safe person.

However, if adults can be fooled, how much easier is it to fool a child. Parents need to be knowledgeable and continually alert to the dangers around their children.

An abuser/perpetrator may not view their behavior as harmful. They may be unclear of (more…)

It’s truly spring. The sprouting signs would declare the season even if we lacked calendars. In Westmoreland County (PA) the high 80s and low 90s temperature on April 24-25, 2009, were perfect for the Ryan and Sarah Adamosky Rumbaugh’s wedding. In addition to being a friend of the family, I was the ceremony photographer.

Signs other than the temperature indicate we are experiencing spring. The pear tree (more…)

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. (to view photo click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3412621389/). I will be continuing my posts on child abuse and domestic violence throughout the month. Please be there for children whom you suspect are being abused. Sometimes, all you can do is hold out a loving hand and pray for them.

This post is part of a continuing series about child abuse and parenting. At the end of this article are links to the other posts on this subject. If the links do not work, go to www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com , click on the folder CHILD ABUSE or the folder DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, and scroll down the posts to find answers to your questions.

All the media coverage makes dysfunctional families easy to detect. But what markers identify healthy families? Why do some families “make it” while others do not?

No family is completely healthy. Nor is any family completely unhealthy. Rather, they fall on a continuum, able to move in either direction toward health or dysfunction. Healthy families have traits more on the healthy end of the continuum. What are these traits?

Escaping an abuse situation can be dangerous. The first days, weeks, months, after leaving are the most dangerous days in the relationship. My husband, Monte, a pastor, buried one young woman whose ex-boyfriend returned and gunned down both her and her new boyfriend within weeks of their separation.

A viable plan is necessary. The steps below need to be carried out cautiously to prevent their detection.

First, familiarize yourself as best possible with domestic violence services in your community, especially the (more…)

This post is part of a continuing series about child abuse and parenting. At the end of this article are links to the other posts on this subject. If the links do not work, go to www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com , click on the folder CHILD ABUSE, and scroll down the posts to find answers to your questions. Some applicable devotions will be filed in the DEVOTIONS folder.

Although abuse victims learn to accept their worthlessness, there is hope for those who are caught in abusive lifestyles and for adults suffering the effects of childhood abuse, even though remnant effects of the abuse may never leave. The cycle of abuse can be broken—in your own life and in your children’s lives. Abusiveness is learned behavior. As such, it can be (more…)

SCRIPTURE: Ephesians 25 instructs husbands to “love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church…Christ gave himself for it….men ought to love their wives as their own bodies…two shall be one flesh.”

DEVOTION: I have pictures in my files of bruises given to women by their husbands. How could this be if the men loved their wives they way Christ loved the church, as they loved their own bodies, and if they were one flesh? How is it that a spouse will (more…)

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

AND WHO WILL REACH THE DOWNTRODDEN?

Lent Devotion #18

SCRIPTURE: Judges 6:15 And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I (Gideon) save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house. (KJV)

DEVOTION:Janet sat at my table in tears, sharing her story of the worst kind of childhood abuse. Several trusted family members had sexually abused her from the time she was a toddler, and she was claiming responsibility for their actions. In turn, when her own children were molested Janet blamed them rather than the adult perpetrators.

The county’s trained professionals had custody of her children but they were unable to help Janet. She was not responding to their “program.” Now she was sharing tea and her problems with me.

THE CYCLE OF ABUSE

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. (to view photo click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3412621389/). I will be continuing my posts on child abuse and domestic violence throughout the month. Please be there for children whom you suspect are being abused. Sometimes, all you can do is hold out a loving hand and pray for them.
This post is part of a continuing series about child abuse and parenting. At the end of this article are links to the other posts on this subject. If the links do not work, go to www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com , click on the folder CHILD ABUSE, and scroll down the posts to find answers to your questions.

Abusive relationships usually involve a pattern of behavior. Since abuse is often directed against women, it will be referred to that way: however, women also abuse men.
After a battering incident a honeymoon stage occurs, often including apologies, gift giving, promises, and (more…)

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

TYPES OF ABUSE

“Can anyone here define the word abuse?” I asked.
The table was filled with a core group of persons hoping to improve their community and their skills in lifting up others by participating as a member of the board of directors in the newly formed Family Support Program. The focus of this organization was to prevent child abuse by healing parents of the effects of their own childhood abuse.
However, at this, our first meeting, the only response I had from the people who wanted to stop abuse in their community was blank stares. I hadn’t realized how desperately these persons were to do a task that they couldn’t define. How could they help prevent something that they knew was wrong, but could not define? I discovered that I had my work cut out for me.
Since the Children’s Trust Fund grant was directed towards prevention of child abuse, I delineated six definitions that focused on that topic.
PHYSICAL NEGLECT occurs when a child is not sheltered, clothed or fed adequately.
PHYSICAL ABUSE often, but not